Ted and others, I've been meaning to ask you this for a while...
When you hear migrating Lark Sparrows in Colorado, are you hearing their flight call they often give while flying over in the day or is this strictly a nocturnal flight call you're hearing? If the latter, how would you describe it relative to other species and/or their daytime flight call? Do you know of a recording somewhere? I ask this because I never heard a Lark Sparrow give their daytime call (or at least the call I'm thinking of) in my nights listening in Utah. Songbirds are definitely beginning to move here in eastern Washington. Last night I heard at least 4 Chipping Sparrows and 1 probable Yellow Warbler in about 15 minutes of listening outside of Spokane, WA. We had a nice surface inversion tonight with calm winds at the surface before a cool/gust (the increase in the wind actually mixed the atmosphere causing the temperatures to warm) front producing 5-15mph easterly winds at the surface with 20-35mph easterly winds 200-1000+ ft AGL move through eastern WA. I hoped the sudden increase in a non desirable wind direction would cause an increase in nocturnal flight call activity, but that did not appear to happen in my ~15 minutes of listening just after the gust front passed. Birds heard included 2 presumed Chipping Sparrows and 1 Savannah-type Sparrow (Vesper and Grasshopper fit into this category?). Colby Spokane, WA On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 5:04 AM, Ted Floyd <tfl...@aba.org> wrote: > Hi, all. > > No zugunruhe here... :-) > > It was the real deal here in eastern Boulder County earlier this > morning, Thursday, July 30th. Between 3:30 and 4:00, I heard the > following flight calls: 1 Yellow Warbler, 28 Chipping Sparrows, 2 Lark > Sparrows, and 1 Lark Bunting. Of special interest was an Upland > Sandpiper (basically accidental in the county) that called 5 times as it > flew over. > > Only Yellow Warbler breeds onsite. (Onsite = Greenlee Preserve in the > city of Lafayette.) Besides, it was a solid hour before first light, so > these weren't birds stirring at dawn. They were up there, going places. > > Conditions were perfect for the Upland Sandpiper and Lark Bunting > (although not, I wouldn't have thought, for the Chipping Sparrows coming > out of the mountains): light NNE winds, low cloud ceiling, light rain > earlier in the evening. > > ------------------------------- > > Ted Floyd > Editor, Birding > > ------------------------------- > > Please support the American Birding Association: Click on > http://www.goodsearch.com/?charityid=884482 to search the internet. > > Check out the American Birding Association on FaceBook: > http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=22934255714 > > Check out the American Birding Association on Twitter: > http://twitter.com/abaoutreach > > Please visit the website of the American Birding Association: > http://www.aba.org > > -- > NFC-L List Info: > http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_WELCOME<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC_WELCOME> > http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_RULES<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC_RULES> > -- > -- NFC-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_WELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_RULES --
